Celebrating the Resident Artists of Community Murals
Get to know our Resident Artists!
As our up-coming Wall Ball celebrates the important work of our Community Murals program, we are shining a light on some of their talented Resident Artists who help to beautify and enrich our city with their amazing murals created through collaboration with community members.
Community Murals has a long history of working with artists on staff, in the recently redefined title of Resident Artist. In these roles, they work with project managers in our department on various projects located in communities all over the city, at many Parks & Recreation sites, help maintain murals by restoring them, are skilled trainers and educators in our mural making process and have a range of specialties in non-traditional methods and materials of art marking.
We are featuring the collective role in its various forms to show the diverse range of skills and talent amid the group, both currently on staff, as well as others who were on staff in years past, and one who passed away but left a legacy of incomparable work behind. From portrait based realistic murals, to abstracted styles, beautification projects, ground murals, unique installations or murals with mosaic and non-traditional elements, the Resident Artists have an impressive and deeply-talented combined body of work that Community Murals is proud to honor and celebrate. These artists truly ignite change!
Felix St. Fort
Felix has been working with Mural Arts for nearly 18 years, first as a freelance artist then later joining the staff as a Resident Artist in 2019. He has taught youth around the city in our Art Education department, worked with returning citizens and mentored young artists. His unique abstracted styles range from simple to complex in geometric layering and styles including silhouettes mixed with his signature look. He also participates in training and educating other artists through the Mural Arts Institute and has a background in Illustration and Graphic Design.
A native Philadelphian, Felix St. Fort received his BFA in Illustration from The University of the Arts in 2002. A gifted teacher, illustrator, photographer, and muralist, St. Fort has worked for Mural Arts Philadelphia for ten years as both an assistant and lead artist. St. Fort’s most prominent commission, Lead Muralist for the Philly Painting project—a three-block long commercial corridor revitalization effort envisioned and designed by internationally-renowned artists Haas & Hahn—was completed in 2012. St. Fort’s personal work consists of watercolors, acrylics and digital media. He has sold his work in galleries and has also created privately-commissioned pieces.
Dave McShane
Dave has worked on many iconic murals over his two decades working with Mural Arts. Some of his early murals are still iconic signature murals to this day, like the Tribute to Jackie Robinson, the Phillies mural, all of the Eagles Youth Partnership murals at dozens of schools all over the city, other sports murals and an old mural he re-envisioned with his wife, fellow artist, Eurhi Jones at 13th & Arch called Water Gives Life. He’s also done several tribute murals to community organizers and leaders such as Herman Wrice and Mamie Nichols. He worked with the the Philadelphia Eagles Community Relations Department every year to produce large scale murals with schools around the city, the youth and the Eagles’ team/staff. He also works with the Mural Arts Institute and oversees the Mural Training Program that helps train and educate artists interested in learning Mural Arts’ community-engaged mural production process.
McShane, a Phillies fan practically since conception, first started painting with his twin brother when he was a child. Two of eight kids growing up in Audubon, Camden County, with a dad who was a plumber and a mother who stayed at home to raise her children, their art-making came from a place of busy-keeping and resourcefulness until it blossomed later on in life — first in high school, when McShane’s art teacher let him paint murals in the school, and again when he stepped out of La Salle University with a bachelor’s degree in pre-med but a lingering itch for art.
From there, he took his talent to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and, still a Phillies fan, continued making baseball paintings in his spare time. When the opportunity for the Robinson mural surfaced with the Mural Arts Program, he used those pieces as showcases and has since made a whole slew of sports murals citywide.
Parris Stancell
Parris was a staff artist with Mural Arts for about 15 years and the majority of projects he worked on were with Community Murals. He retired in 2016 and became a freelance artist working with communities and Mural Arts in new ways. His signature style is recognized all around the city and brings a unique abstracted folklore style to his portraiture where he primarily focuses on Black narratives that are often inspired by poetry and music.
Parris had many impacts on Mural Arts Philadelphia. He was one of the first artists to oversee classes with the inmates at Graterford Prison. In collaboration with Cesar Viveros, he worked on the project Healing Walls, which was critical to the development of the Restorative Justice Program. He was the key artist for many years painting the mural in collaboration with Global Citizen as part of MLK Day of Service and worked with students to create a banner whose theme addressed issues from MLK speeches. He was one of the artists selected to paint with Prince Charles and Camilla during their Philadelphia visit and Mural Arts tour.
